


Tales From Rapture

by Amsare



Category: BioShock, Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Crossover, Drugs, Gen, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 19:37:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11858280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amsare/pseuds/Amsare
Summary: Bioshock!AU. The city of Rapture, built in secret in the depth of the Atlantic Ocean is on chaos. Eridum has corrupted its citizens and Rhys is all by himself against its ruler, Handsome Jack.“Hi there psychos, this is Handsome Jack speaking, the one and only ruler of Rapture, your only god, whatever. It seems like there's somebody among you who thinks to be smarter than me. Well, he's wrong. And I'm talking to you, Rhysie, of course.”





	Tales From Rapture

**Author's Note:**

> Bioshock is one of my favorite video games and I really wanted to write something set in Rapture once again starring Rhys and Handsome Jack. Instead of ADAM or EVE, there's Eridium. Sorry for any mistakes!

Rhys was running faster than he could. He didn't have any ammos left and he was sure he would have died soon if he hadn't found somewhere safe to hide. Maybe he shouldn't have wasted his last bullets missing the psycho's head who wanted to cut him into little pieces... But he had never been good at shooting things. All that he had ever wanted to do in his life was acting, and Rapture had seemed to be the perfect gateway. At first things had been fine, then somebody had thought about drugging people with Eridium and everything had gone to hell. That somebody was Handsome Jack.  
   
Handsome Jack, ruler of Rapture, had always been a crazy megalomaniac. It wasn't a secret he despised humanity and its flaws; sometimes, he depicted himself as a god on Earth. And of course, a kind of man like him couldn't keep on living side by side with common people. But he had decided to build Rapture on the bottom of the sea for other reasons (as he had explained many times during his speeches). Firstly, he was rich, so why not? He could actually build a functional city in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and nobody would have known it. And secondly, only those who would have been tired of the usual Governments and their rules would have been the ones to settle down in Rapture. Together they would have created a new horizon for the human race, as up there all the other countries would have killed each other in less than a decade.  
   
Well, this had been true until Handsome Jack had gone totally insane drinking and injecting Eridium. Amazing what it can do to your biology, making you blast fire from your fingers or electric bolts. He had started to become even more paranoid, killing every single person he suspected of; outside his office, the bodies had been hung up on the wall as a warning to the city. To ensure Eridium production, they said he had sacrificed his own daughter making her one of the first Little Sisters: those little girls were five, six years and they walked around the city along with their metal bodyguards, the Big Daddies. They were the only one who could gather Eridium from the corpses, without ending up killed in the process.  
   
It was impossible thinking that Rhys had considered Handsome Jack an idol a long time ago. He had wanted to be just like him!  
   
“I wish I had never come here in the first place,” Vaughn had said to Rhys once, as they were walking down Apollo Square. They had just watched a woman getting killed by the guards, after she had started to shout crazy things and blast fire from her hands.  
“Me too. Maybe New York wasn't so bad after all,” Rhys had shivered looking at a carbonized body on the floor. A little sister was putting a needle in it, taking out a bright purple liquid. How much he had wanted to help that little girl: it was like she was living on another planet, singing lullabies and chuckling lightly... But that wasn't life.  
   
If only he had known!  
   
Rhys had never tried to take Eridium. He hated needles and the thought of injecting some strange liquid into his veins made his skin crawl. Not even the promise of making him a new arm out of nowhere made him change his mind. “I'll keep my fake one, thank you,” he had said to Doctor Steinman, a lunatic Eridium lover who used to be a surgeon. He had started to use Eridium to grow limbs and cure people; except it wasn’t really safe. When Rhys had told Vaughn about it, his best friend had agreed with him: too many men and women were suffering Eridium addiction. Last thing he wanted was to become a rotting corpse in a dark corridor.  
   
How he managed to survive in that city until that moment was a real puzzle: not even some of the best people had survived so long down there cut off from reality. Maybe he was clever, or maybe he was just lucky. Even his friend Vaughn hadn't survived so long: Rhys had been the one to kill him from distance, when two psychos had cornered him: they had started to tear his body apart and god, he screamed, his blood dripping on the wooden floor… Rhys still dreamt about it during those rare moments of tranquility when he could hide in an abandoned room somewhere in the Residential Quarters and sleep. He shouldn't have left him alone in the first place, but he had been the one who had wanted to stay behind. "I've got your back!" Vaughn had said.  
   
The thought of his friend was still hurting him: Rhys gritted his teeth, keeping on running. He looked behind, glancing at the crazy disfigured man who was shouting at him horrible things. “I'M GONNA EAT YOUR EYBALLS!”  
   
Shit, shit, shit.  
   
Rhys turned right, opening a heavy metal door – where was he? – and as soon as he entered into the dark room, he closed it behind his back. There was a loud sound, as if the man chasing him had just hit it. “OPEN THE DOOR, YOU BASTARD!”  
   
He was safe. Rhys fell on his knees to catch his breath, his body trembling. His right shoulder was hurting, but he didn't mind it; he checked on his prosthetic arm but everything was fine with it. At least, he seemed to be all in one piece. He looked up, trying to understand where he was: there were two couches in front of an enormous window; some fish were swimming outside in the Ocean, unaware of what was happening in Rapture. There were some shelves on the opposite wall, some books still ordered up there; an old TV set was broken and it laid on the dirty floor; another metal door was closed on the other side of room.  
Rhys managed to get on his feet, stumbling a little as he walked over it. He tried to open it but in vain: there was something heavy on the other side of the door: maybe the bedroom had fall down with a grenade…. But there was no water on the floor, so it was impossible. At least he didn't risk of dying by drowning.  
As there was nothing else to do – there weren’t even a gun or some ammos to collect – he fell on one of the couch and he closed his eyes. He didn't want to fall asleep but he couldn't help it. Everything had been too much and he just passed out.  
   
It wasn't long before he had to wake up once again.  
   
“Wakey, wakey...”  
   
Rhys groaned in his sleep. Go away, he wanted to say, leave me alone.  
   
“Rhysie...” Wait, he knew that voice, didn't he? “Come on, Rhysie, wake up.”  
   
_Oh, no. No, no, no._  
   
“I said... WAKE. UP!”  
   
Rhys opened his eyes, electricity passing through his body. He clenched his jaw, his limbs spasming: it was like he couldn't control his muscles anymore. When he thought it would have never ended, finally it stopped. Gasping, he focused on the man in front of him.  
   
“Hello, Rhysie. How are things? Still kicking I see, good, good,” Handsome Jack said casually, as if he hadn't tried to kill him just a moment before. Rhys noticed how much he had changed since the first time they came to Rapture: he looked like the ghost of the powerful ruler he once was. His silver hair was messy, his arms were covered of red infected wounds, purple liquid leaking out of them. But the most disturbing detail was his face: he was wearing a mask of his own old face, before ending up disfigured by the countless operations he suffered under Doctor Steinman so that he could be even more handsome. There was no sanity left in that man.  
   
“So, long time no see, uh? I mean, you settled down easily here in Rapture, thanks to me,” Jack said, folding his arms. “And how did you pay me back? You forgot about old Jack. Not cool, kiddo. Not cool.” His eyes were full of hatred.  
   
Rhys swallowed. He didn't dare to move even if he really wanted to run away from him. How could he stand up from the couch without getting caught? Handsome Jack was like a hawk. Maybe he could try to talk to him, reasoning somehow. “Listen, Jack...” He said, licking his dry lips; but Jack didn't let him finish his sentence as he put a finger on his mouth to shush him. He was closer now, and Rhys smelt death on him.  
   
“I don't wanna hear your bullshit now. Time is up and you're gonna suffer the consequences.”  
   
“Jack, p-please, I-” Jack's hand went right to his neck, clenching hard around it and cutting off his oxygen.  
   
“Still talking, are we?” Jack growled, smirking at Rhys who was fighting to breathe; he put both hands on Jack's one but he wasn't strong enough set himself free. “Shut,” he squeezed, “your,” he squeezed harder, “mouth,” and then he let him go.  
   
Rhys caught, catching his breath. His eyes were watering, his throat hurt. The man went to face the windows, staring at the Ocean. “Rapture was my dream. An _opportunity_ to build something different for humanity,” he said, “and Eridium wasn't a mistake, cupcake. I like to think of it as a sort of gift for all of us...”  
   
Rhys wasn't following his ramblings; he looked at the opened door not so far from where he was sitting. Maybe he still had a chance to survive after all.  
   
“Okay, a lot of people died,” he kept on talking, putting both hands on the glass of the window, “but that's what people do every frigging day. I'm not the one to blame if they couldn't control their new powers, they weren't me... I sacrificed so much...”  
   
Rhys' heart was beating so fast he was afraid that Jack could hear it; he moved his legs, slowly, crawling down on the floor. Jack didn't even notice him: he had put his forehead against the window and he had closed his eyes.  
   
_Now or never._  
   
Rhys jumped on his feet and rushed out the door; he had forgotten to take his gun but he didn't have ammos anyway.  
   
He didn't dare to look back not even for a second.  
   
_That was close._  
   
   
   
Fortunately, Rhys had finally a safe place where to stay. After having found an old shotgun and some bullets, he managed to claim a whole corridor for himself as there weren't too many psychos to kill. Adrenaline had done its job, making his senses ready: it was kill or be killed after all. He found two chocolate bars and a bottle of clean water – his dinner. Then, he had barricaded the door of the corridor and smashed the security cameras: last thing he wanted was to meet Handsome Jack once again. As he finally lied down on a dirty mattress, a loud voice came out of the loudspeaker.  
   
“Hi there psychos, this is Handsome Jack speaking, the one and only ruler of Rapture, your only god, whatever. It seems like there's somebody among you who thinks to be smarter than me. Well, he's wrong. And I'm talking to you, Rhysie, of course.” Rhys groaned, putting his real arm on his head. "I'm gonna find you, kiddo, mark my words. And you're gonna be so sorry for having come here in the first place. I'm gonna fill you up of so much Eridium that you'll die of poisoning and then I'll watch your lifeless body being drained up by one of the Little Sisters. Maybe I'll get Angel only for you. Special occasion and all of that, what you think? Too much? Nah!" He chuckled. “Ciao.”  
   
That night, Rhys dreamt of his old life before Rapture; having dinner with his mother, reading a good book, acting on stage, going out with his friends... When he woke up, his cheeks were wet. If he hadn't found a way out of that city, he would have gone insane for sure. Sighing, he sat up, head in hands and wondering how he could escape: the main entrance was out of question as it had been flooded by Handsome Jack himself so that nobody could get away so easily taking a bathysphere. But what about the Fisheries? Maybe some of the old submarines were still there…  
   
He took a deep breath and got ready to get into the battle once again. He would have run to the elevator and then, he would have gone to the lower levels. The cameras weren’t working down there anymore, so Jack wouldn’t have been able to track him down.  
Heart beating fast, he opened the door: he looked around but there weren’t any psychos waiting for him. He got to the elevator and suddenly the lights went off, leaving him in the dark.  
   
“No!” Rhys exclaimed, “No, no, no, please, not now!”  
   
Somebody laughed in the distance: a door opened and Handsome Jack came out, smiling like the devil. “Did you really think you could escape so easily? Come on, Rhys. You’re embarrassing yourself.” He pointed a gun at his face. “Do you know what I put into these bullets? That’s right. Eridium. I created Eridium bullets, I’m such a genius!” Jack walked towards Rhys, “do you want to prove it?”  
   
Rhys stepped back, back hitting the elevator door. His eyes widened in terror and Jack pulled the trigger.  
   
“FUCK!” He felt so much pain to his chest that he expected to die on the spot, but death never came; it was like the bullet had exploded into his body, shattering his organs. Rhys looked down, helpless, as blood was gushing out of the wound, coating his clothes red.  
   
“Red looks nice on you, kiddo,” Handsome Jack lowered his gun, still smiling as if nothing had happened; he watched the younger man moaning in pain with great interest. “Don’t worry though, you’re not gonna die…yet.”  
   
Rhys curled up in a ball and groaned. “W-What did you do to me?”  
   
Jack kneeled down next to him, stroking his face. “I made you a promise, sweetcheeks. You’re gonna love Angel.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm also on tumblr! [ http://amsare-saxon-picture-show.tumblr.com/](http://amsare-saxon-picture-show.tumblr.com/)


End file.
